Thursday 6 October 2016

Home Sweet Home for a Ghost!

Hi there,
today I have the cutest little 3D item to show you. They were  (yes there are three of them!) made using the new Home Sweet Home Thinlets Dies from Stampin' Up.


Aren't they just adorable or what?
Before I go any further I was inspired by this great post and video over at  the Simon Says Blog. Click HERE to see what I'm talking about, you will be amazed. Now I don't have the Tim Holtz Village dies so I couldn't re-create it nor do I have  any of the distress inks or texture paste or anything that  Shari used in the video. What's a girl to do when faced with this dilemma? Buy all the stuff or see what I had that I could use? Seeing as I had not long purchased the Home Sweet Home Thinlets Dies and hadn't used them my dilemma was sort of solved.

My first house was the experimental house, you know the one where you try different stuff and see what works and what does not....yes there was quite a bit of does not lol.





I used Basic Grey CS for the house, Black CS for the window and door trims as well as the roof, all from Stampin' Up. Once I had run all the dies with the paper through the Big Shot and cut out all the pieces I would need, I set about "oldenizing" ( yes it's a word it means grunging up lol) my house.
To do this I found in my stamp stash a very old grungy background stamp from Kaisercraft (I have had it for so long I don't know the name of it sorry). I stamped all over the walls of the house pieces using Old Olive, Basic Grey and Black ink from Stampin' Up to give it a mottled, crumbling & really old look. I then attached all the trims around the windows and doors with glue. I attached the roof I had cut out of black CS. For the door I cut another small piece of the grey CS and stamped it with the Hardwood background stamp from Stampin' Up in black and attached a small brad from my stash & glued it on top of the existing door.  It looked great so far but it was missing something. I found some medical gauze I had in my craft stash from years gone by.... I think it was from when I tried my hand at shabby chic crafting - something I am not good at and avoid at all costs!

 Anywhoo back to the gauze, I stamped it with black and silver ink and then artistically draped it over part of the roof and around the doors and windows.....faux cobwebs anyone?



I was quite chuffed at this stage with my haunted house so I decided to make two more. I mean why not right? I had out all the stuff, my fingers were already covered in ink I may as well. When it came to the roof this time I thought it looked too new....mmmm how could I grunge up black CS? Black ink wouldn't really show up unless I heat embossed it....mmmm light bulb moment was when I had a go at stamping it with that grungy back ground stamp using silver ink. Eureka it looked like it had lichen growing on the shingled roof. 

You can just sort of see it in the photo below. It was really hard to photograph the houses to show up the details properly with the natural light available ( it was quite overcast here at the time). They look so much better in real life.



 Here are some more photos to enjoy.








 A couple of close up shots of the little bat....awww cute!




  A back view of the houses.




One last photo of all three houses.


Do pop over to the Simon Says Blog to see  the project that inspired me.

Have a awesome day.
Cheers Donna :)

Wednesday 5 October 2016

Using Up Your Scrap Cardstock

Hi there,
I'm certainly on a roll with my creating and posts.... the question is,how long will I be able to maintain my momentum? Mmmmmmm....the answer is "How long is a piece of string?"

OK onto today's cards. I was inspired by the super talented and awesomely creative and all round  lovely person Jennifer McGuire over at Jennifer McGuire Ink




 If truth be told I just  copied Jennifer's cards using what I had. I didn't do the inlay technique Jennifer      showed in her video and on her blog, I 'll explain why later. Click HERE to go to Jennifer's blog post with her video.


 I grabbed my scrap pieces of CS and cut them into strips.I  adhered my coloured strips of paper onto  another piece of thick white CS. It looked super. It was just too thick to die cut the word 'love' out of though as Jennifer had. 




 Instead I die cut the word out of black CS. I then covered the word with glossy accents and sprinkled a bit of dazzling diamonds  glitter over the word while the glossy accents was still wet. 



 Once the glossy accents had dried I just attached the word "love" to the stripey piece. The stripey       piece was backed with black CS to give a small border top and bottom of the stripey piece and then attached onto a card front. Pretty simple really!

                                                       One last photo of both cards for you.


So what do you think,? Don't forget to pop over to Jennifer McGuire's blog to see her video on how to make this card.

Have a beautiful day.
Cheers Donna :)

Tuesday 4 October 2016

A Beautiful Day Part 4

Hi there,
how are you this fine sunny day?  I trust you have got into your craft rooms today and played. Do you remember these cards from this post?

 

Given that I made sixteen of these lovelies, I decided that if I bundled them up into groups of four (there are four different coloured backgrounds) I could give them as gift sets. 

I had a bit of a play around with the packaging and came up with two types. Both similar just the closure a little different. The first type was inspired by this one HERE. Mine is not nearly so lovely as the one the lovely Michelle made. I was actually just experimenting at this stage. I didn't follow the measurements from this post rather measured mine out myself to fit my card dimensions. The closure flap is a piece of DSP from Stampin' Up, glued to the back of my box and then folded over the top  with the front piece cut on an angle. Here are the photos so you can see.





I had a different closure for the other boxes. Whilst I liked the closure on the first box, I do think the DSP needs to have a piece of card backing it to make it a bit more durable and sturdy.
Anywhoo, here are the other boxes.







As you can see it closes just like a normal  box and has a belly band around the middle to help keep it closed and to add a bit of decoration. The flower I stamped on the belly  band is the same flower that is on the cards inside the boxes from the A Beautiful Day stamp set from Altenew. I made three boxes with the belly band and one box with the decorative flap.  

So what do you think? Which closure is your favourite? The box is simple to make and just takes one sheet of A4 CS. 

Have a lovely day.
Cheers Donna :)




Monday 3 October 2016

Just for You

Hi there,

just found these photos of some cards I made that I forgot to blog about. I don't think I need to explain them too much I will let the photos do that for me. Sorry in advance for poor lighting, it was late in the afternoon when I took these photos ;)

These two have a silver embossed sentiment.


  

These two have a gold embossed sentiment.




One last photo of all four cards together.


Hoping your day is magnificent.
Cheers Donna :)

Sunday 2 October 2016

A Beautiful Day Part 3 - Altenew Ultimate Challenge Blog Hop

Hi there,
back again with another group of cards using my new favourite stamp set A Beautiful Day by Altenew. AND no I'm not sick of it yet, I hope you aren't lol.

I am entering these cards into a Challenge over at Altenew, it's called Altenew's Ultimate Challenge Blog Hop. Do pop over and see what it's all about.




Four beautiful cards in different colours. I have made eight of these. The blue flower is stamped directly onto the card, I masked the flower to stamp the leaves. The other coloured flowers were all fussy cut and stuck over the top of the stamped leaves. It had been my intention to stamp all the flowers directly onto the card....but smudges of ink around the flowers that couldn't be hidden with artfully arranged sequins lol meant I either throw the whole thing out and start again or fussy cut the flowers out and just stamp more leaves. Obviously I went with that option, after all I had stamped the flowers I just couldn't throw them out there was nothing wrong with them!






Aren't they pretty? Which is your favourite colour?

In the next photo you can just see a hint of Wink of Stella on the petals. I coloured over the stamens   with a black sharpie, then went over the black dots of the stamens with glossy accents. I think you can just see the shine of the glossy accents in the photo.



A close up of the stitched border and some more Wink of Stella shine....it's so pretty!



A side view showing the smaller panel was popped up on craft foam to give added dimension.



One last photo of all four cards again.


Do leave a comment to let me know which is your favourite, I'd love to know. Don't forget to pop over to Altenew's Ultimate Challenge Blog Hop.

Have a marvellous day.

Cheers Donna :)